GFLD Wrote:
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> Nobody likes their boss.
>
> I learned two management techniques while working
> on the RR "weasel words" and "yelling and
> screaming", counter-productive at best, I would
> say.

I've had the privilege of working for some excellent bosses. Rollin Bredenberg tops my all-time list of someone who totally understands the concept of railroading and has the "people skills" that breeds motivation in his employees. Those are the most important skills a railroad manager must posess, in my opinion. It's a natural trait, not something that can be learned in an MBA course.

Unfortunately, all too often railroad managers don't posess the mental capacity to grasp that if they treat their underlings fairly and with a certain amount of respect, the minions will respond likewise. I've worked for more than just a few who were the polar opposites of a Bredenberg. Some were openly vicious and intentionally confrontational, besides being total inept at railroading, and the employees under their charge took great pleasure in setting them up to fail. A few I can think of were simply pond scum, and kept their jobs only because they had a protector somewhere higher up the management chain and could rely on the "FUMU" theory to keep them bouncing around the railroad. (If you don't know what FUMU is, the last three words are Up Move Up - I'll let you figure out what the first F stands for.)

It's this latter group that I think of when I recall a line in one of John G. Kneiling's Trains columns that's stuck with me for 40-some years. He was ragging on management (gee, there's a shock!) and said something like, "If they were really any good at being managers, what are they doing working for a railroad?"